It's depressing some people are still unclear what's actually happened (and thus how it potentially relates to the UK).
The Democrats had their second chance to save democracy. They failed that test. You do not get a third chance. Stacking and taking on the judiciary, reducing Congress to a servile body, demanding blind loyalty in your subordinates, expecting mass delusion in the machinery of state, crazy schemes to reshape the world and ultimately using raw power to bend every strategically important entity to your world view, this movie has been seen before. Many times.
1930s Germany is far less relevant than how post-war democracy has been in retreat across the world. Were people in comfortable secure Western democracies paying close attention to these world trends? Clearly not.
Go back and watch one of the first episodes of John Oliver. It's all about how, 900 days before the 2016 election, well before Trump was a factor, the American media was entirely if not COMPLETELY uninterested in the forthcoming election in India (the eve of the era of the Indian Trump Modi) and the transition of Putin from prideful but manageable western partner to aggressive expansionist authoritarian (little green men in Crimea).
Why did the Democrats fail? Because democracy (of which the media is a part) has been failing America for decades. Perhaps ever since the Berlin Wall fell ironically. The Democratic Party is beholden to monied interests, an unresponsive top down allergic to feedback identity cult.
The Democratic Party saw the roaring success of a grass roots unifier Obama who never talks down to anyone he needs to vote for him, and decided that what America needed next was a coronation. A Clinton. Someone stupid enough to even utter the word deplorable into a mic. A woman who stood by her man despite being the embodiment of male privelage the Party professes to hate. Probably only because it was politically convenient.
The very dynasty blamed by many Americans for the disaster that is NAFTA that hollowed out the rust belt. The swing states that went for Trump in 2016, having reached breaking point after the financial crash and seeing none of the recovery. The message was not headed. Hyped up on ridiculous fantasies that they could deal with Trump Al Capone style and dismiss his appeal as racist lunacy, they ignored the fact that compared to Obama's astonishing victories, Biden's were barely more than a statistical blip.
The swing states were not convinced. Maybe treason was a step too far for some, enough to tip the scales, but they were not rushing headlong back into the fold after their experiment in madness. Nor were people staying at home. Turnout was only going up year on year as the stakes got higher. People were energised, they were listening. Engaged. Locked in.
You can't blame social media. It's not a mind control system. It can educate people if you use it that way. Ever seen a Democratic Party attack ad? Educational, it is not. New Labour style spin on steroids, it is. Genuinely undecided people aren't so easily fooled, not in this era of information overload.
For anyone who looked, the facts about Biden's pathetic presidency spoke for themselves. He didn't remove many tariffs. He didnt roll back many Trump border laws. He continued Trump's effort to turn the Gulf of Mexico/America into a toxic hellhole, rolling back climate targets. America became the world’s largest producer of oil and gas under Biden.
All the lies he told about this being good for net zero, good for the world economy, good for Ukraine, were quickly exposed as lies by the hard data. He did it simply because it suited his domestic agenda. Good old buying American votes. Economic growth and low gas prices. Sod the planet or the people, particularly Amercians living on the Gulf Coast.
In the later years of his presidency there were literally former Biden advisers heading up lobbying firms selling this madness as job creation and economic revival for states left behind by....the global switch to clean energy. I mean, just, wow. But do the Democrats like owning their own lies? No. Never. Delay. Deflect. Deny.
But where were the jobs? And why did the Democrats now hate Musk? The man bringing jobs back to America due to Trump era policies, happily continued by Biden. The man speaking up for free speech. Where was the Obama era hoped for progress on stuff like drug prices? Stymied by the lobbyists and Congress, in the pockets of Big Pharma. Where was the evidence Biden could reshape/revive America without merely being a weak looking hypocrtical Trump tribute act? Nowhere to be seen really. Might as well have the real thing, no? Go hard or go home.
But the Democratic Party at least knew Biden was right. He really was the only person in that entire party who can beat Trump in places like Michigan. Not because he's an old white man. The incredibly young Obama beat an elderly white war hero in '08 and the actual son of a Michigan governor in '12, both in Michigan. What matters is authenticity. Unfortunately it matters more that you're not so old you don't know what you're doing.
Harris was beaten across the board. Her local organisers in the swing states like Michigan were screaming at her that she was making massive mistakes in her campaign. It mattered to non-whites in the borderlands that illegal immigrants were bringing violence and the horrors of slavery to their doorstep. It mattered to the white housewives and single mothers of Michigan that their small towns were still hollow shadows of their former selves and they were still having to work three jobs just to survive.
It mattered to all the flyover states that Biden just happily threw away decades of American bloodshed in Afghanistan, and was apparently so incompetent he let himself be misled (or just ignored) his own Generals and intelligence agencies regarding the weakness of the Afghan Army due to rampant corruption and the obvious fact America had not defeated the Taliban in any meaningful way, because it was politically expedient. What was it all for? Why am I flying this damn flag outside my home? Powerful thoughts.
It mattered that for the Democrats, it still appeared to be all about Trump the individual and the impure thoughts of his supporters, with a side order of abortion, an inherently divisive topic. Major issues like the economy and immigration could be glossed over.
The Trumpification of Trump's Party evidently from the ground up, sidelining the last vestiges of reason and moderation that were still there even in 2020, could be ignored. Not relevant. Or only relevant as a reason to unquestionably vote Democrat. Not look inward and see if the Democratic Party was remotely electable to the Trump curious.
Voters just doing the right thing, in sufficient numbers to offset the clueless racists, was just assumed. Taken for granted. Business as usual would resume. Lobbying. Monied interests. See you in another 5 years. Pay no mind to the fact swing voters and even many Democrats were crying out for a change in America's course. Big change. Michigan primaried for Bernie, not Hillary. Ignored again.
The fact every Trump voter was a de facto traitor, was super important to the Harris campaign. An armchair supporter of the plotters and revolutionaries. We cant have revolution here, this is America! But hey, please vote for us and "Save [American] Democracy"!
It's incredible anyone thought this was a winning strategy. But the centralised deaf to voters Party was so convinced, in the final stretch, the penultimate night iirc, they let Harris appear on the bastion of left wing sneering talking down telly to basically gloat and signal how wonderful she was. Look at all the celebrities that love me. And hate you. But please vote for me!
Do the Democratic Party even consider me to be an American, Trump voters must have asked themselves on that fateful night. Increasingly, and incredibly, the answer was no. Although they still believed in freedom, self reliance, the rule of law, and above all, the Flag, for some reason they now had the wrong opinions, beliefs, maybe even skin colour. They could be openly mocked for the deplorables they really are.
And yet the Democrats forgot the most important thing about democracy. The right to vote is a powerful thing. Because in that booth, nobody can judge you for voting the wrong way. If that's your truth, you can speak it into being.
How ironic that it led to the downfall of the Party of speaking your truth and placing your feelings above your fellow man, especially if you're not a man. Millions of women voted for Trump. Milions. Women are people too. Individuals with free will. Who knew?
Political correctness and it's successor identity politics, while not a deciding factor more than say the economy or immigration, was a constant drumbeat. A headwind the Democratic Party never really understood was driving them inexorably to electoral oblivion once they put Obama back on the shelf and forgot everything he had taught them about the importance of taking people with you and not being evil or just plain stupid.
Bill Maher has been banging on about this for years, the vote loser that is political correctness for the left. The insanity of the modern Democratic Party seeking to hold the moral high ground on anything, when they were themselves so much like Trump and the GOP he subverted. Self interested hypocrites.
In the eyes of millions of his new voters since 2016, there is at least a certain honesty about Trump. You know he doesn't care. You know you are just a vote to him. But you know what? He does what he says he will. He renegotiated NAFTA. Very important in places like Michigan.
Bill Maher's show comes on after John Oliver. As a Californian native, offering his lived experience, often as he tries to do the right thing such as install clean power for his home, the often really quite ridiculous experience of living in the Land Of "Woke" gets Maher more laughs than the insanity that is the Trump Clown Car. From Californian voters!
A left wing American and a left wing British comic have signposted the Democratic defeat since well before Trump was a factor. Nobody was listening it seems. At least nobody who matters in modern politics or their servile media partners. When was the last time a Guardian journalist asked you for your view? Or printed it in their newspaper or comments? They will do so only if it's the right view for their agenda. Which is fine. Press freedom.
But when people start talking about banning newspapers for airing the wrong views, that's when you've basically forgotten what freedom and democracy even is. That's when, surprisingly, it's you who look like the book burning thought controlling Nazis you profess to hate. It doesn't matter that history might be on your side. Politics is ultimately about feelings and perceptions. Always has been. Didn't you know that? Maybe the cycling of light and darkness is a feature, not a bug?
We have more in common with America than divides us. We should cherish things like the BBC, a truly free press, campaign laws, cabinet government, door knocking. It may be the only thing that keeps Farage out of power. But if keeping Farage out of power doesn't fix what needs fixing, don't even bother complaining when the country votes for him in unimaginable numbers a second time. Because you have already seen this movie. It's playing in American movie theatres as we speak.
Democracy really is dying now. The irony being that the US Democrats cried wolf far too many times, and all too often only to protect their own cruel automated Big Pig Farm interests and comfortable reality denying opinion silos. So maybe the people just don't care anymore. Maybe won't until the shooting starts.
That's hopefully not when 1930s Germany becomes relevant and we instead see a repeat of the violent and treasonous acts that birthed America. Land of the Free. Home of the Brave. It takes no bravery at all to condemn someone on Twitter for their unpalatable views. You can only do so because of Freedom.